


WHAT DOES ANDERS SMELL LIKE

by spicyshimmy



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone asked the question on tumblr. Five ways to answer it followed. <i>Anders knows what everyone else has to offer, just as many threads of scent in the Circle as there is gossip.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	WHAT DOES ANDERS SMELL LIKE

I.

Anders knows what everyone else has to offer, just as many threads of scent in the Circle as there is gossip: blends of burnt parchment and new ink and the dust from cracked bindings for all the senior enchanters; for Jowan, something sweaty and uncertain as candle-wax, staining loose cotton; Mr. Wiggums changes depending on what he's eating, but it's usually  _something_ fishy. Apprentices always smell like spells gone sour and adolescence, practically the same thing anyway--they even have the same amount of demons to contend with--not to mention all the hopes and dreams and armpits of the dormitories, shared snores and fresh bread and sticky butter and gravy dribbles. 

Templars always smell like metal.

And Karl is no different, such a part of everything else they suffer daily--but also satchels of dried elfroot tucked into the sleeves of his robes to keep the moths away and strict soap that never overpowers skin. 

He takes Anders's hands in both of his, bringing them to his lips. His breath tickles Anders's knuckles, discolored as they are from work in the roof garden, digging up spicy tubers for potions while daydreaming about Denerim and getting dirt under the whites of his nails. 

Despite all his suspicions, Anders has no idea what's really there or what it means to anyone, if it means anything at all. It's impossible to know what you smell like because that's only ever about  _other_  people, how  _they_  feel about  _your_  flesh. 

'Well?' Anders asks. 

'It's a mystery to me,' Karl replies.

II. 

A rogue with a troubled past, Anders thinks. The quick fingers, broad shoulders, handsome eyes and massive nose are just perks--gravy to sweeten the potato mash, which coincidentally they demolish every night at supper, except for Oghren, who finishes his off from his beard-braids the next morning with a hearty slurp of appreciation. 

The point is, Anders could do a lot worse.

What's more, he doesn't think he could do  _better_.

The idea doesn't come to him until he gets a whiff of studded, sweaty leathers, all the residue of smoke and oils against a creaking, boiled cuirass, the rough-spun fabric of the padding beneath, the hints of a body under countless well-strapped buckles. Even those have a smell to them, something that rubs off on the fingertips, absolutely nothing to do with dusty old vellum or mashed up elfroot or dirty tubers.

'Yes, that's right,' Anders says, leaning in close enough that his lips brush the hair at Nathaniel's throat. 'Even with Oghren around,  _I_ choose to smell  _you_.'

He catches Nathaniel doing the same in return only once, massive nose pushed into a tangle of loose hair,  _free_ hair--but they each pretend they believe the other one's sleeping, fingers twitching like a cat's paw chasing through a dream.

III.

Neither of them is in top form when they first meet--and Darktown occludes any possibility for deeper exploration, or anything other than  _holding your breath_. It's all sewers down there, and Fereldans, and fevers, and the stench that sets in a wound untreated or the marrow of a broken bone. It's all fear and mold and more metal, and the rolling smoke of the chokedamp, and things that go  _squelch_ in the night, and the rats that eat them.

But even then, Hawke splashes something behind his ears, more than simple soap, more than simple skin. After he moves up in the city, it only gets more pronounced.

Velvets. Fireplaces. Porcelain tubs. Endless footstools that aren't necessary and pillows with too many tassels and polished mahogany banisters that gleam brighter than stained glass--depending on the angle--smooth enough that none of it comes away to the touch, that Anders might as well be holding on to a ribbon of silk when he climbs the stairs. 

Imported Orlesian aftershave and white lotions in shiny pots. A hint of dog and mud beneath all that. 

The sense that the former isn't even trying to cover the latter. They work together in a way no two opposites should--it's Hawke all over, up and down, pale skin freckled and fletched with scars.

Whenever Anders sniffs his feathered shoulders, he grimaces.

But Hawke grins and pulls him close, burying his face in the crookedest spot at Anders's throat, breathing in deep and long and hard.

IV. 

After a time, lyrium destroys all other senses. Whatever there was to begin with fades-- _fades_ \--beside that hungry, narrow pulse.

Spirits have no concept of  _the_ concept. They see no reason to hide their mouths against someone's jaw and kiss what you can't taste and live what you can't hold. They _do_ sniff out emotions, though--even if Anders didn’t want to know the deeper stuff for such a _long_ time, what waited below the surface.

'Elfroot,' Justice said once, Anders elbow-deep in treating poultices--a parting gift for Vigil's Keep and the only perfume a spirit healer ever  _truly_ knows.

'Wish you could smell it,' Anders replied. 'It's...special. Like me!'

But it drowned out the rotting flesh of the moment with the strength of what mended that rotting flesh, fronds for fissures, a fever's bitter cure.

Justice closed his eyes--he took a deep breath, and tried to understand.

V.

Now, Anders knows he smells like Justice, too much of a burning thing--scoured clean, so different from  _nothing at all_.

**END**


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